Students at the Magisterium are supposed to be safe. Under the watchful eyes of the mages, they are taught to use magic to bring order to a chaotic world.

But now the chaos is fighting back. Call, Tamara, and Aaron should be worrying about things like pop quizzes and magic contests. Instead, after the shocking death of one of their classmates, they must track down a sinister killer… and risk their own lives in the process.

As Call, Tamara, and Aaron discover, magic can only be as good as the person who wields it. In evil hands, it has the capacity to do immeasurable harm, unless it is stopped in time.

In this striking third book of Magisterium, bestselling authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare present us with a school where anything, good or evil, can happen, and the only way to unlock the truth is to risk everything to find it.

Take me back to the good old days of Harry Potter… without actually being like Harry Potter. There is no doubt about it, Harry Potter is one of my all time favourite series. The adventures, the magic — I often have to restrain myself from re-reading it! This co-written series is able to capture that wonderful, magical spark that Harry Potter so brilliantly possessed, whilst also presenting something original and something a little darker. The overall story is definitely intriguing, the characters are great, and the twists and turns are so unexpected — you will be sitting on the edge of your seat!

Now, Cassandra Clare receives a lot of hate for “copying” Harry Potter with her TMI series. But, I do not really want to go into all that controversy — because that’s not important right now — I just wanted to say that you shouldn’t let the fact that this controversy exists make you not want to read the book. Yes, this book has been described as similar to Harry Potter, but I think that this is an unfair comparison. There are elements that both share, but this series is very different, and I would urge you to give it a go.

This book is incredibly fast paced, everything happens quickly, but all the loose ends are tied together beautifully. This book is incredibly fast paced. Very, very fast paced. I loved the fact that we still received some backstory, character development and heaps of twists and turns in such a short book. There was no stopping, hardly any time to take a breath. You were pulled into this story from the beginning and you were not let go until the very end. Seriously. This book took me less than a day to read. I started it one night and finished it by lunchtime the very next day.

Though, I will admit, it is a little short. Very short. For a book that I was so excited to read, it was extremely disappointing that it was only 249 pages. Yes, this meant that I managed to read it quite fast. Yes, it got straight to the point. But… I really wanted to spend more time in this beautiful and frightening world that both Holly Black and Cassandra Clare created. I wanted to see more of Tamara and Aaron, and even more of Jasper. There were hardly any moments with Rufus, their mentor, which was also very disappointing.

If the authors could have done anything differently, I think that they could have written this book a little longer. Then, perhaps we could have spent more time with these characters and learnt more about the world that this story is set in.

I was surprised, I was amazed, I was devastated. My emotions were seriously all over the place with this book. I laughed in certain places, and I may have cried. Oh, who am I kidding? I totally cried.

About Madeline

My name is Madeline and I am a twenty-two year old book blogger and aspiring author from Australia. When I am not blogging, reading or writing, I am most likely studying for a university degree, reading comics or binge-watching a number of television series.